


Dragons, Vikings, and Polyatomic Ions

by SheisaCShelz



Category: How to Train Your Dragon (2010)
Genre: F/M, friendship fluff
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-03-27
Updated: 2014-04-03
Packaged: 2018-01-17 05:50:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1376200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SheisaCShelz/pseuds/SheisaCShelz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of one-shots and short stories centered around post-movie Berk and inspired by the seemingly random arrangement of letters and numbers denoting the polyatomic ions I had to memorize last year for chemistry.</p><p>For those of you who also need to memorize them, maybe it will help.  (Hah!)  For those of us who don't, have your toothbrushes close at hand.  And maybe some vinegar.  You'll need it, because these snippets are going to be sweeter than sugar-loaded strawberry juice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Mercury(I)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Toothless learns a little secret that Hiccup likes to keep in the dark.

**Mercury(I) – Hg 22+**

Hiccup would never admit it to anyone (except maybe Toothless, if Toothless begged hard enough) – but he had always been terrified of the dark.  For most kids, it was just a phase they went through.  For Viking kids, it was a very, very short phase.

But Hiccup had never made it through his.  He remembered very clearly when he was four, clinging to his mother’s leg, screaming about the boogie troll under his bed and begging her not to leave him alone in his dark room, or at least to not blow out the candle.  His father had rushed in, too, and when he heard about the situation, Stoic knelt down very seriously in front of the boy, telling him that, oh yes, he believed Hiccup entirely that there was a troll under his bed, and that when that beastly monster leapt at him, all he had to do was deal it a smack worthy of Thor’s hammer, and it would never try to bother him again.

But unfortunately for Stoic, four-year-old Hiccup had already had a fair bit of experience with the real world and was not stupid in the least, and looking down at his skinny arms, knew that he would never be able to get rid of the shadow troll, causing a whole new round of screaming and sobbing to rampage through the house.

‘Funny,’ Stoic had muttered as his wife tried to settle Hiccup down enough so that he would at least get onto his bed.  ‘That works for every other Viking parent I know…mine included…’

Of course, Hiccup was far too old to believe in boogie trolls and the like nowadays…but that didn’t mean he was cured of his fear of the dark.  Because there was still plenty of other stuff out there, and that stuff was real.  And in the dark, he couldn’t _see_ it.  He couldn’t _fight_ it (although that was a slim chance in the daylight, anyway).  And he certainly couldn’t _run_ from it.  He couldn’t do anything except stand there and wait for it to come close enough for him to figure out what was going on and what to do, but by then, it would be too late-

“GYAAAHHHH!” he screamed, doing an impressive leap that left him on the top of a barrel that stood taller than him.

In front of him, at eye-level, Toothless cocked his head, his black scales blending in perfectly with the night shadows.  His wide green eyes were the only clues that he was there; when he blinked, his entire silhouette seemed to disappear for a moment.

“S-s-sorry, bud,” Hiccup laughed breathlessly as his heart started up again.  “You startled me…so…uh…want to go…flying?”

Toothless gave a concerned warble, his posture clearly stating that he wanted to know what was wrong with Hiccup first.

“Oh, it’s nothing,” Hiccup laughed it off, his voice just a little bit strained.  His eyes jumped from shadow to shadow around Toothless, trying to see what lay in the dark corners of the houses and the forest’s vanishing depths.  “I’m just a little jumpy right now…”

For a moment, Toothless the Night Fury could only stare at his best friend, slack-jawed, before Hiccup turned to face him.

From then on, Hiccup never went out into the dark alone.  Toothless always made sure the Dynamic Duo was together between the time the sun fell out of the sky and when it rose up again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So to explain this it centers around Hiccup (H).  This time his screaming started with a G (g).  And I focus on the duo (both 2s) and Toothless's efforts to support Hiccup (+).  It's a stretch, I know.  But it was fun to write.
> 
> ~Sheisa


	2. Phosphate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Astrid realizes that her not-exactly boyfriend is an undisciplined weakling and decides to do something about it.

**PO 43-**

Astrid nearly dropped her axe in shock when Hiccup confessed that he didn’t know how to use weapons.  She had invited him to the teens’ usual training session and after a lot of mumbling, he admitted that he never trained and he didn’t know how to use weapons.  Not ‘I can’t use weapons’ – he definitely said ‘I don’t know how.’

Which was 'preposterous,' is the word she thinks she used.

Clearly the topic aggravated him because he waved his arms around more than usual when he informed her that the last lesson he’d had in the art of using any sort of weapon had been over seven years ago.

Well Astrid was happy to rectify that.  At least at first.  She wasn't so happy when she started to get a clue as to _why_ nobody had bothered to teach him how to use the weapons he made.

She of course started him with the axe.  He couldn’t lift it.

Any hammer he could swing was too light to be used as anything besides a baby toy.

He kept tripping over the long handle of Ruffnut’s pike.

Tuffnut’s spear didn’t go any better.

And the sword…great Odin’s ghost, the sword was just a _disaster_.  He tripped.  He stumbled.  He dropped it.  His grip was too loose and his wrist was too flexible and his stance was too weak.

She was very proud of the not-at-all-disappointed tone she managed at the end of their brief tripping session.  “That’s enough for today.  Hiccup, why don’t you head back to the village.  I’m going to go do my training.”

She’d actually already done her daily exercises but after this fiasco, she really needed to go kill something.

The next time she saw him was at dinner.  Hiccup was hunched over his plate and Snotlout and the twins were laughing it up.

“Aw, poor wittle baby Hiccup!”

“Don’t worry, Ruffnut’s here to protect you,” the blonde girl cooed.

Hiccup’s head fell on the table with a resounding thunk.

“I can protect poor baby Hiccup better!” Tuffnut yelled, slamming his hand on Hiccup’s back in a friendly-ish pat that made the smaller boy grunt.  Of course, this started a scuffle between the twins over who would be defending ‘Poor Baby Hiccup’ and Snotlout just continued egging them on with his comments on how Poor Baby Hiccup needed to eat so he could become a big strong boy and maybe then he’d be able to at least carry a weapon.

Fishlegs sent apologetic and sympathetic looks at Hiccup through his suffering, unable to say anything without being completely ignored by the other Hooligans.

Astrid rolled her eyes as she set her plate next to Hiccup’s.  Obviously, they’d heard of Hiccup’s woes.  And as usual, they were not helping the situation any.

“So when do you want to meet tomorrow,” she butted into Snotlout’s inquiry on whether Poor Baby Hiccup wanted him to tuck his napkin in under his neck for him.

“Astrid, did you see me today?” Hiccup asked, shooting a very dirty look at his cousin.  “I’m hopeless!”

He backtracked quickly at her glare.  “I mean, how does tomorrow afternoon sound, same time?”

“That’s better.”  Because he was never going to get anywhere with an attitude like that.

The next day, she didn’t do her exercises before her chores.  Instead she met Hiccup right after lunch in the forest.

“Okay, obviously you need to do some conditioning before we do anything with weapons, so, twenty push-ups!”

“What!”

Today Toothless was with them and the dragon raised an eyeridge as he watched the two crazy kids get down on all fours and start doing…well, Astrid was doing push-ups.  Hiccup was kind of just…wiggling around a little bit.

“Oh, for Thor’s sake, Hiccup, you do know what a push-up is, don’t you?”

“Of course I do!  I just can’t do them!”

Astrid observed him with a critical eye.  “Your position’s wrong.”

He turned bright red.  Astrid decided to ignore him in favor of completing her fifty.  She flushed self-consciously when she stood back up and noticed Hiccup’s somewhat awestruck, definitely flabbergasted and slightly dreamy stare.

Just for that, she was a bit rougher than she needed to be when she straightened Hiccup’s back and put his feet next to each other.

“Go!”

His arms bent…a little.

Astrid rolled her eyes.  “Further!”

“…Can’t…”

“We’ll see about that.”

“Wha-HEY!  Astri-“

“Down, boy!”  Astrid almost laughed at Hiccup’s indignant spluttering as she pressed her foot on his back, forcing him to go further and further until his arms were almost making a rectangle.

Hey, she wasn’t _mean_ or anything.

He managed to get through four nice push-ups, one pathetic one, and a full-body flop onto the ground.

Then came the curl-ups.  Astrid did hers upside-down in a tree.

Hiccup couldn’t get up the tree without Toothless’s help.

Astrid promptly did her forty curl-ups as Hiccup watched and then made him copy.

Long story short, he couldn’t really do them.

“Keep your feet down!” she yelled at him, still hanging from the tree like a monkey as she pulled herself up and down on the branch.  Hiccup grunted in reply from the ground as he tried valiantly to get to twenty good curl-ups.

“Yes!  Fourteen!”

“That one didn’t count!”

Hiccup groaned.  Astrid got an idea.

“Toothless?  Toothless, help Hiccup and sit on his feet.”

Toothless warbled with laughter at Hiccup’s dismayed expression.  “Toothless…come on, Toothless, bud, please!”

Toothless ignored him and wandered over to sit on his boots, looking for wall the world as though he didn’t even know Hiccup was there.

“Perfect!  Go on, Hiccup!”

“Ugh…you two live to torture me, don’t you?”

“Aww…is Poor Baby Hiccup tired?  Does he need a little nap?”

Scowling, Hiccup did a couple more passable curl-ups before going back to his groaning.

As far as Astrid was concerned, he could groan about the pain as much as he wanted.  Their little training trio would have ‘Poor Baby Hiccup’ doing forty push-ups by the end of the month.


End file.
